


Inside my haunted head

by Beleriandings



Series: Tales of Lake Mithrim [8]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, M/M, Trauma and recovery, lowkey background relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 09:39:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4474439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fingon means well, but sometimes ósanwe can cause more harm than comfort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inside my haunted head

In the wicker chair by the bedside, Findekáno dozed as the fire burned low and the moon rose high in the cloud-strewn sky outside. He felt sleep tugging at him, weighing him down. Upon the bed lay Maitimo, sleeping soundly for once. 

Findekáno gazed at him affectionately, twitching the piled furs that covered him closer about his cousin’s chin and, briefly, touching Maitimo’s cheek. For a moment he let the backs of his fingers linger against the scarred and pitted skin, feeling the hard jut of Maitimo’s cheekbone beneath. 

It had been hard on Maitimo, and Findekáno knew he was partially to blame. Guilt clawed at his heart even as he looked into Maitimo’s sleeping face.  _He asked me to kill him_ , Findekáno found himself thinking, as he had times uncounted since he had brought his cousin, bleeding and torn, weak and helpless as a young bird, back to Mithrim.  _No, he begged me to kill him._

 _And I didn’t_. 

Though all was peaceful now, when Maitimo had first woken he had been overwhelmed with confusion and pain, had been unable to speak as the healers fussed over him. He had barely been able to form any sound at all, except for a panicked whimper. Findekáno had held his hand then, with tears in his eyes, tears of relief that Maitimo had woken at all, for they had feared for his life many times during the first few days and nights. But there was terror in that first gaze, Findekáno saw. Fear that there would be no release, that the pain that Maitimo was clearly in would only go on. 

Yet now Maitimo slept once more, and Findekáno tried reflexively to let his mind touch his cousin’s, to offer him solace even in his dreams. 

As it always had since Findekáno had saved him, the brush of his mind on Maitimo’s seemed to rebound, his thoughts springing back to him suddenly. 

He sighed. He supposed it had been worth a try, though he knew that ósanwe and love alone could not heal Maitimo in body or in mind. Only time would do that.

Or at least he hoped it would.

Just as Findekáno began to subside back into the chair again, weariness claiming him, a whimper from the bed pulled him back to alertness, making him sit up, blinking rapidly. 

Maitimo’s eyes were fluttering behind his closed lids, his face twisting a little as though in pain. “No” he murmured, “no, no, no, please… get out of… ah,  _no, don’t_ …” then there were words in a strange, guttural language that Findekáno couldn’t understand, spat like poison from his cousin’s lips. The very sound of it made his stomach turn.  _Their language_ , Findekáno knew. He had listened to Maitimo murmur its words in his storm-tossed dreams for many days now, and always the knowledge cut at him anew.  _He learned to beg and curse in the speech of the orcs_. 

Then Maitimo’s voice rose, and suddenly he was kicking off the restricting bedclothes, his whole body gone rigid for a moment, before he curled into himself, crushing his bandaged arm to his chest at an angle that must surely have caused him great pain, for the next sound he let out was a stifled, keening wail. 

Findekáno was at his side immediately, leaning over the side of the bed. Tentatively, he laid a gentle hand on Maitimo’s left arm, feeling the convulsive trembling that had seized his cousin’s whole body. He tried once more to let his thoughts touch Maitimo’s, to let some shred of familiarity, of comfort and love pass between them at the very least, as they had once shared thoughts with such ease… it was rebuffed though, as before. “Maitimo” he said, trying to sound calmer than he felt. “Maitimo, hush now. You’re safe, I’m here. It’s only a - ”

But he was cut off as Maitimo’s eyes flew open, raw, molten panic filling them. 

“ _You._ ” The word seemed to cost Maitimo a great effort of will, his voice a choked-off, rasping whisper. “No, please, I don’t want…” he tailed off into a string of unintelligible syllables that may have been more Black Speech or simply nonsense, dragging his eyes from Findekáno’s and curling into himself once more, hiding his face behind his hand like a child. 

“Maitimo, it’s me” said Findekáno, his voice cracking. “Findekáno. You’re… you’re safe now. Remember?”

Maitimo peered up at him from beneath his twisted fingers, his eyes wide and pale in his gaunt face. Terror filled them, Findekáno saw with a sharp stab of pain. Terror and complete lack of recognition. He held out a hand again, determined to calm Maitimo. “It’s Findekáno. Open your mind to me, beloved one, and I’ll… I’ll show you. It’s safe. Everything will be all right.” He touched Maitimo’s fingers with his own, very gently. “I promise.”

But at that, Maitimo sprang suddenly into life, baring his broken teeth in a snarl that caught Findekáno off-guard, before lashing out with strength that Findekáno would not have believed were possible from the starved, fragile thing his cousin had become. He shoved Findekáno violently in the chest, catching him off balance and sending him sprawling painfully into the corner of the table, causing him to bite down on his tongue in surprise. The taste of blood filled Findekáno’s mouth as he climbed to his feet again, to see Maitimo had burst from the bed, and was curled, trembling and dressed only in the light linen shift the healers had put him in, in the corner of the room, scrabbling desperately at the wall.

Findekáno crossed the room gingerly, maintaining a distance between them this time. He held out a hand to his cousin, who was covering his face with both arms. Blood had begun to seep through the bandage that swathed his right wrist once more, Findekáno saw, blooming bright against the white linen.

“Maitimo?” 

His cousin did not even look up; he seemed frozen with terror, every muscle in his body taut as though from pain or anticipation of a fight. 

Findekáno tried again. “Maitimo, it’s me. It’s Fin. Look, you’ve bled through your bandages. Let me fetch the healers and - ”

“Please, no” whispered Maitimo, tears coming now, flowing down his face. “No, they’ll hurt me, they’re just like you, everyone… wants to get in my head…”

Findekáno opened his mouth, lost for words as guilt flooded through him once more. “Maitimo… I shouldn’t have tried to touch your mind, especially not while you slept. I only wanted to help…” he cut himself off. “No, there’s no excuse for it. I’m so, so sorry, Maitimo. Your mind is your own.” He held out a hand to the trembling figure of his cousin in the corner of the room. 

Maitimo looked up at him for a long while with eyes like those of a cornered animal, teeth bared, blood from the stump of his wrist smeared across his cheek and chin. Several times he flinched away, his eyes flicking between Findekáno’s outstretched hand and his face, as though waiting for a blow to fall, or trying to judge the danger he was in.  

They stayed like that for a very long time, eyes locked together, each waiting for the other to move.

Suddenly, Maitimo’s eyes cleared a little, some of the tension going out of the muscles in his contorted face. He blinked. “F-Fin… Findekáno?” his voice was muffled, stammering, but intelligible. 

Findekáno could not help but smile. “Yes” he said, feeling warm tears of pathetic relief come to his eyes. “Yes, it’s me. I’m here.”

“It’s really you?”

“It’s really me. I swear the truth of that to you, Nelyafinwë Maitimo.”

Very slowly, not letting his bloodshot, tear-filled eyes leave Findekáno’s, Maitimo extended his left hand into the space between them, letting the tips of their fingers touch very, very gently. He seemed to find confidence from that, more than Findekáno’s words. 

“May I…” asked Findekáno haltingly. “May I hold you?”

Maitimo hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. Very slowly, Findekáno approached, extending his arms to catch his cousin up in a loose hug, barely conscious that the two of them were curled awkwardly on the floor in the corner of the room where Maitimo had cowered from him. At first Maitimo held his body stiff and tense in Findekáno’s arms, before allowing himself to relax a fraction, letting his head fall forwards a little onto Findekáno’s shoulder. 

Even at that gesture though, Findekáno felt the burning tears flood into his own eyes again. “I’m so sorry” he choked out. “I shouldn’t have tried to touch your mind, not without asking you. I promise that unless you ask me to, then never again will I - ”

But he broke off in surprise, as he felt Maitimo reach out towards him with his own mind, letting the two of them touch. It was not the connection they had had before; it was not made of images or words, merely of feelings sharp and raw as broken glass, of the very presence of the other. Findekáno opened his mouth, but finding himself unsure of what to say he merely let himself hold Maitimo, felt Maitimo’s frail arms come slowly up around his back and hold him back, until his cousin was clinging to him desperately. 

“Findekáno” mumbled Maitimo, into his hair, as though the word was new to him, and he was testing how its syllables sounded in his mouth. “It’s you. It’s really you.”

“Yes” said Findekáno, bringing a hand up to the back of Maitimo’s head, clasping him close even as he felt the abrasions on his scalp, beneath the dishevelled tufts of short reddish hair. “Yes it’s me.”

“I’m sorry. I pushed you, I hurt you…”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about” said Findekáno, with more force than he intended. “I’m sorry that I tried to…” he breathed, gulping in air and almost choking on it. “Before you were ready…”

“There are things…” Maitimo’s voice faltered, though he sounded more like he had before now. “There are things… that I don’t want you to see. Yet. Maybe ever. Please let me keep those.”

“Of course. I promise I will not try to come into your mind, not unless you ask it of me.”

Maitimo nodded, tucking his nose against Findekáno’s shoulder. “Please” said, hesitantly. “Please, can you… can you stay with me for a while?”

“For as long as you want me here” said Findekáno. “I promise I will never leave your side.”


End file.
